Pittsburgh's André Costello drops new album, set to mark milestone event at Mr. Smalls' Sanctuary

Pittsburgh musician André Costello can pinpoint the weekend six years ago when he first started working on his new album, “Rocky Mountain Low” — because it coincides with a new addition to his family.

“The weekend that I went to Youngstown to record this the first time, my wife on that same Saturday also drove into Ohio and picked up our puppy dog, Mochi, from an Amish family in Millersburg, Ohio,” Costello said. “And she’s as old as the album.”

Costello, who’s fronted Forestry Division, Tomorrow Club and André Costello and the Cool Minors, will drop the new album on Aug. 20. He’ll celebrate the new record with an album release show on Aug. 30 at the Sanctuary at Mr. Smalls — the first ticketed event at the new Millvale venue/recording studio. The show will also be recorded and pressed to vinyl by Hellbender Vinyl.

“Rocky Mountain Low,” which features recent singles “Can We Hang” and “Background Actor,” came together piece by piece as Costello worked with his friend Anthony LaMarca (The War on Drugs, The Building) at Peppermint Recording Studio in Youngstown.

“Anthony’s family and my family actually used to go to the same church well before we knew each other,” said Costello, who was born in New Castle. “I think my grandmother was his grandmother’s assistant teacher at St. Vitus School, and whenever I visited him in Brooklyn, he had made pasta, and it tasted exactly like my (grandmother) used to make it, so they were from a similar cloth.”

When it came time to record, Costello would bring song demos he’d worked up at home — “The process was the same each time where I would, not intentionally, but I would not send Anthony anything. …”

“He sat down at the drums. I sat down with an acoustic, and we’d just run through the song three times, record that, and then pick the best one, and then go in, and he would track bass, and I’d do keys,” Costello said. “Just having fun like that, building it up together, and the process was fun, and I was busy with a bunch of other stuff going on.”

Those other things would be the variety of musical projects Costello has juggled in recent years.

“(In) lockdown, I started the Tomorrow Club project, which was my home recording thing. … We pivoted André Costello and the Cool Minors over to being Forestry Division. Time goes on, there’s still kind of occasionally working on this album with Anthony, especially just a weekend here, a day there. … We just kept going and finished the album, and Forestry Division’s no more, and Tomorrow Club is more of just a sleeper project, where whenever I bring it to life, we’ll see who’s available, we’ll try to get people to carry over, and so André Costello’s been this whole different animal, this whole different approach.”

With recent single “Can We Hang,” Costello said he treaded familiar thematic territory.

“Usually my songs are about sadness and finding comfort somewhere, sadness or fear and finding comfort somewhere and safety, and this one is no exception either,” he said. “It is about having a person that you’re just like, I think I’m in my head too much. I should just talk to another person … and feel better when you’re around that person. It can be like your partner or just a good buddy. In this one, I’m thinking of it more as like hanging with a good buddy.”

Despite being recorded over a period of six years, Costello felt like the album fits together.

“Like any of my albums and any album really, it’s cool that we call it an album, because it is like a photo album,” he said. “If I was to show you a photo album of every time I visited Yellowstone, it would still have that same theme, even though I’m a little older in the next photo or my hair is a little different, or my beard’s shaven or a little longer. It still makes sense in that context.”

The Sanctuary show came together after a late-night visit to the revamped facility across the street from Mr. Smalls Theatre, which is owned by married couple Liz Berlin (Rusted Root) and Mike Speranzo.

“I was at a Ramble — the Randy Baumann thing — and it was like 2 a.m. And (Rusted Root’s) Jenn Wertz was like, ‘Hey, you want to go see that studio? You want to see Mike’s studio?’ Mike was like, ‘Hey, do you want to come over?’” Costello said. “So we go over there. It’s like 2:30, 3 o’clock, and they’re all sitting up there chatting. I was talking with Liz and Jenn about band dynamics, and they know a lot because they’re in Rusted Root. I’m like, this is unreal.”

A Zack Keim show during the Millvale Music Festival had been planned as the first ticketed event at the Sanctuary, but it fell through. Costello has inquired about designing the template for the record series, when the opportunity to play there popped up.

“I’ve just been kind of around and Michael was like, ‘What if you did that? What if you did the first ticketed event?’ And I’m like, holy (crap), it would be a huge honor,” Costello said.

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Although the performance will be recorded for the album, Costello said he wasn’t feeling any extra pressure.

“So I record at home, right? The pressure comes from second guessing myself. So I think my practice of recording at home with Tomorrow Club has sort of informed this ability to have confidence in my own choices and what I end up doing. Coming out of that one where I made a lot of choices on that album that where I did my best to tear down expectations. Because whenever you’re creating something like that, you might have people you’re thinking about listening to it that they would like, or your past bandmates that would pooh-pooh an idea, (laughs) you’re afraid that that builds up these walls.

“It’s fear and second guessing. I was able to strip all those off for the most part with the Tomorrow Club thing. And then at the same time with the André Costello album, I was in a completely different situation there too than I’d ever been in. Instead of me going in and everybody just kind of sitting there and being like, ‘Well, what do you want to do, André?’ ‘Cause I’m the one that invites everybody to the studio to record and it’s my song. Instead Anthony’s like, nah, I’m thinking this thing for it. And he has this clout of, he played drums on St. Vincent’s albums. He was on the St. Vincent/David Byrne record. He’s played with Spoon. And if he says like, ‘Nah, I think we should do this.’ I’m just like, all right. Well, my ego’s hurt and I’m also confident that this is going to be sweet because this guy is saying we should do something.

“So my ego is in a better place and also as far as pressure for this new venue and doing this first ticketed event, I’m nothing but excited.”